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San Diego School District's New 18-Ton Armored Vehicle

103 points by fizl 12y ago

unethical_ban 12y ago
The price isn't free, it's was more than $700,000. If these school districts wanted to send a political message worth hearing, they'd protest government fat and refuse shipment. If they were to be completely practical, they still wouldn't take these. "It will be carrying teddy bears"... buy a van! The maintenance costs on this are incredibly expensive in the long-term, and I can only imagine what this would do to small-town roads or fields with even semi-regular use.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- a3n 12y ago
  Because they're buying things they don't need. It's good to be a defense contractor.
- rdtsc 12y ago
  I would imagine there is corruption involved. They get rid of these as "unfit" so they can turn around and buy some more from their "friends" that just happen to build these.
iamleppert 12y ago
Why aren't these things dismantled and the ports sold and stripped, and then that money sent to schools to you know, pay for more teachers, get more computers, and upgrade classrooms?? What the hell is wrong with people? You think that this thing is free, what about the costs to store it, repaint it, service it, transport it? That's certainly not free on the off-chance that they need to use it against some (probably) student gunman? Really? These vehicles need to not only be taken away from civilian use, but those responsible for their procurement at the local and federal levels, including whoever is in charge of this program, need to be brought to some kind of justice and/or punished.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- spindritf 12y ago
  I'm guessing that stripping it for parts, transport, and coordination would cost about as much or maybe even more than whatever value you could extract that way.
  - Crito 12y ago
    Then just drop the thing in the fucking ocean and call it "a reef". Why even pay to have this sort of shit shipped back to the states?
    - rhino369 12y ago
      A lot of the stuff isn't brought back. IIRC about a third is donated to locals (stuff that can't be used to fight in the future, a third is junked, and a third is brought back.
    - cstross 12y ago
      If it's from Afghanistan, there's no ocean there to drop it in. And they don't want to leave it for bad actors (as witness ISIS allegedly using captured ex-US artillery pieces).
      - Crito 12y ago
        Unless they drive the thing across the frozen Arctic Ocean, then there is an ocean between Afghanistan and San Diego for them to drop it into. I'm all for removing them from Afghanistan; I just don't want them brought back into the states.
    - benologist 12y ago
      Recycling a perfectly useful vehicle like that is better than throwing it away for nobody to use. It's a used truck with superfluous armor.
DanBC 12y ago
How much does it cost to insure and maintain these vehicles? And how much would it cost to fuel it to drive from where er it's kept to where ever it needs to go? Because if you need a medical vehical there are probably better vehicles. Unless you actually need a 15 ton mineproof vehicle.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Larger entities usually self insure, so the incremental cost for this type of stuff probably isn't very high.
benihana 12y ago
A school district buying one of these is like a guy that makes $40,000 a year buying a Ferrari from the 1980s because it costs $10,000. Sure he can afford to purchase it, but as soon as he needs to replace the $4,000 clutch, he's going to go broke or have a broken, rotting vehicle stuck in his driveway.
rdtsc 12y ago
It is interesting that it got to this and I wonder how many in chain from next down the chain of "hey let's give this to the school district" idea person, to "i am painting a mine-resistant tank in white, so we can use it in a San Diego school district" thought "surely this can't be right" but then did it anyway. In general, with all the militarization of police articles and news. Maybe the proper way is a militarized response to it. Crank it up a level and let it get even more ridiculous. Petty thieves and drug dealers should learn about how to build and detonate shaped charges to defeat these things. It shouldn't be too hard. A copper cone with some explosive behind it should do it. Then wait for the police to start flying drones with hellfire missiles through the inner cities and blasting away whole city blocks. Then use home made SAM missiles to defeat those and so on. Pretty sure with proper PR one can easily invoke the spirit of Founding Fathers and revolutionary and constitutionally sanctioned fight against oppression in response the corresponding rhetoric about Drug or Terror War.
moxie 12y ago
It was interesting to see that Uber is providing financial support for police militarization: https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/507978633894313985 https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/507978633894313985 Shane Bauer's full coverage of the "Urban Shield" police convention in Oakland was great: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/09/video-highlights-oaklands-urbanshield-conference http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/09/video-highlights-oak... https://storify.com/smbauer1/urban-shield-swat-convention-in-oakland-2014 https://storify.com/smbauer1/urban-shield-swat-convention-in...
iterationx 12y ago
These programs are a nice application of the "Stanford Prison Experiment". Dress a man like RoboCop and he starts acting like RoboCop.
- kabouseng 12y ago
  You know that experiment had some serious flaws making the results highly suspect?
moo 12y ago
A lot of downsides to this. High maintenance cost, conditioning children to live in a militarized environment, more bureaucratic overhead for management and administrative decisions (the administrative officials may see this as job security).
smutticus 12y ago
Proving once again that the purpose of war/fear is to transfer public wealth into private hands.
- jlcx 12y ago
  Of course, before it was taken by the government, that "public wealth" was private wealth, and the taking of that private wealth was also justified with fear.
moo 12y ago
I'm not going to vote for more school funding when money will be spent to maintain armored vehicles.
defen 12y ago
San Diego is coated in Navy bases...so the extent to which you could argue that there is a plausible scenario where this thing would be useful is completely obviated by the existing huge military presence. Furthermore, even if it were useful for civilians, why is it in the hands of a school district rather than the police? Who is going to pay for the maintenance? This is completely insane. People are putting their own desire for a "cool" piece of hardware ahead of any rational justification for it relative to its costs.
- jmccree 12y ago
  Like many school districts across the nation, the school district has it's own police force: "San Diego Unified School District Police Department". Of course many now want their own SWAT teams. For the children!
  - defen 12y ago
    I must have completely missed that, thanks! Luckily my first point still stands.
  - johan_larson 12y ago
    What kind of schools they're running if they need cops so often that they've formed their own force? I'm pretty sure none of my schools in Canada and Finland had even a security guard.
- rogerhoward 12y ago
  The San Diego Unified School District, like most large school districts, universities, even transit systems, in the US has its own police force - this is going to a police department... they have 54 officers, so its larger than many small town departments by a good stretch. Also, whether there's a military presence in the area or not is irrelevant to their needs - the military doesn't provide tactical support in law enforcement actions. I'm not taking the position that it's a sane use of resources or a necessity (I don't think it is)...
  - 12y ago
spiritplumber 12y ago
Clearly, we must lobby San Diego School District to start a Sensha-Do program, since they've already got a tank... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_und_Panzer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_und_Panzer
_cudgel 12y ago
If the US Gov't wants to unload these things, how about donating them to the UN for their use, while giving the US Gov't a credit toward back dues?
noonespecial 12y ago
The waste is terrible but I'm thinking there's something worse going on here. Children are being desensitized to seeing the weapons of war being used in daily life by local authorities. This is a bad, bad thing.
- electromagnetic 12y ago
  Honestly this is more insidious than the brain washing that went on in the Hitler Youth. This has got to be what the Jews in the ghettos were seeing before everyone found out who they were to be used on.
  - benologist 12y ago
    I don't really see how this is vastly different to the armored trucks used by banks and security services for decades?
    - noonespecial 12y ago
      Its a tank. At school. Where the children are suspended for nibbling a pop-tart into the shape of a pistol.
      - benologist 12y ago
        Tank: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Japanese_Type_90_Tank_-_2.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Japanese_... Armored truck: http://www.armoredcarssale.com/vehicledata/international/4700/f1011/used_armored_truck_1280x960-053208.jpg http://www.armoredcarssale.com/vehicledata/international/470... Their vehicle: http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/09/13/mrap-ambulance_wide-54bf7231fc1cc86cb1def00ac37882d44e3405f4-s40-c85.jpg http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/09/13/mrap-ambulance_wi...
        LnxPrgr3 12y ago
        To be fair, an MRAP is quite a step above armored car—including being huge, heavy, fuel-hungry, and designed for use in war zones. And MRAP use was somewhat controversial even in Iraq, where they were designed to be used: https://web.archive.org/web/20070718130937/http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003798.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070718130937/http://www.defens... For a lighter look at what an MRAP really is, thanks to Top Gear (though this is a South African vehicle, not the ones we deployed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic They're not tanks, but I can see why people would call them that.
kristopolous 12y ago
even if you believed the entire narrative it still doesn't work. The efficacy of a criminal is due to the response time of the enforcement. It doesn't matter if 30 police show up in tanks if it takes them 45 minutes to do so, except for instance of you know, mass protest and civil unrest. It's like we're moving towards a day where the photograph of the tank man is no longer shocking
- tedunangst 12y ago
  ? What narrative? What does efficacy of a criminal have to do with it?
dba7dba 12y ago
You can't even give these MRAPs away to our allies. S Korean govt was offered 2000 of these by Pentagon. SK Govt was basically getting them for free plus transportation cost. Guess what? After a few trials in their nations, they realized it wasn't suitable. Too big/heavy. Gas guzzler. Expensive to maintain. Invading Iraq was a mistake. Disbanding Iraqi army was a bigger mistake imo.
georgemcbay 12y ago
I live in San Diego and this has been big local news for about a week. Obviously this is insane, not only because the militarization of domestic police is a serious issue and their justification for getting one of these is obviously a completely impractical use, but mainly because the reason the military is dumping these things in the first place is because they cost too much for them to maintain TOO MUCH FOR THE MILITARY (budget: nearly 1 trillion) TO MAINTAIN! Also... what's next, police getting all the Abrams tanks that the Army no longer wants but which keep getting built due to pork-barreling Congresspeople? http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-end-of-the-tank-the-army-says-it-doesnt-need-it-but-industry-wants-to-keep-building-it/2014/01/31/c11e5ee0-60f0-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-end-of-th...
ufmace 12y ago
From what I've read about these things, the maintenance costs if they're used for anything but sitting in a parking lot are insane, especially in the civilian world. There's no established supply chain for special tools and spare parts like there are for normal, mass-market vehicles, so they have to pay through the nose and wait forever for them, or do without. Making this an especially strange purchase. Any cost saved on getting the vehicle will soon be eaten up by fuel and maintenance costs - I'm sure the gas mileage is terrible too.
cb18 12y ago
The most ridiculous thing about this, apart from it being ridiculous in every way, is that these are purpose built machines of war good for only one thing, being resistant to mines. They would have no advantage in use over nearly any other vehicle, police cruiser, ambulance, segway, bicycle, in the extreme situations cited as potential use cases. I don't know what the fuck the dipshits at OSU are thinking when they say they'll use it in conjunction with football games. Maybe somebody got drunk one night and a little too into an academic paper on college football as pseudo warring tribes or something. I guess these things are good for a couple other things besides being resistant to mines. Namely burning a fuckton of oil and accelerating the deterioration of roads. All the more reason to produce more machines of war to commandeer the resources of hostile foreign nations to have the raw materials to refine gasoline and produce asphalt. Well that's probably not good thing, after all.
lotsofcows 12y ago
Free? How much does that thing cost to insure? And fuel?

103 points by fizl 12y ago

The price isn't free, it's was more than $700,000. If these school districts wanted to send a political message worth hearing, they'd protest government fat and refuse shipment. If they were to be completely practical, they still wouldn't take these. "It will be carrying teddy bears"... buy a van! The maintenance costs on this are incredibly expensive in the long-term, and I can only imagine what this would do to small-town roads or fields with even semi-regular use.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

a3n 12y ago
Because they're buying things they don't need. It's good to be a defense contractor.
rdtsc 12y ago
I would imagine there is corruption involved. They get rid of these as "unfit" so they can turn around and buy some more from their "friends" that just happen to build these.

iamleppert 12y ago

Why aren't these things dismantled and the ports sold and stripped, and then that money sent to schools to you know, pay for more teachers, get more computers, and upgrade classrooms?? What the hell is wrong with people? You think that this thing is free, what about the costs to store it, repaint it, service it, transport it? That's certainly not free on the off-chance that they need to use it against some (probably) student gunman? Really? These vehicles need to not only be taken away from civilian use, but those responsible for their procurement at the local and federal levels, including whoever is in charge of this program, need to be brought to some kind of justice and/or punished.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
spindritf 12y ago
I'm guessing that stripping it for parts, transport, and coordination would cost about as much or maybe even more than whatever value you could extract that way.
- Crito 12y ago
  Then just drop the thing in the fucking ocean and call it "a reef". Why even pay to have this sort of shit shipped back to the states?
  - rhino369 12y ago
    A lot of the stuff isn't brought back. IIRC about a third is donated to locals (stuff that can't be used to fight in the future, a third is junked, and a third is brought back.
  - cstross 12y ago
    If it's from Afghanistan, there's no ocean there to drop it in. And they don't want to leave it for bad actors (as witness ISIS allegedly using captured ex-US artillery pieces).
    - Crito 12y ago
      Unless they drive the thing across the frozen Arctic Ocean, then there is an ocean between Afghanistan and San Diego for them to drop it into. I'm all for removing them from Afghanistan; I just don't want them brought back into the states.
  - benologist 12y ago
    Recycling a perfectly useful vehicle like that is better than throwing it away for nobody to use. It's a used truck with superfluous armor.

DanBC 12y ago

How much does it cost to insure and maintain these vehicles? And how much would it cost to fuel it to drive from where er it's kept to where ever it needs to go? Because if you need a medical vehical there are probably better vehicles. Unless you actually need a 15 ton mineproof vehicle.

maxerickson 12y ago
Larger entities usually self insure, so the incremental cost for this type of stuff probably isn't very high.

benihana 12y ago

A school district buying one of these is like a guy that makes $40,000 a year buying a Ferrari from the 1980s because it costs $10,000. Sure he can afford to purchase it, but as soon as he needs to replace the $4,000 clutch, he's going to go broke or have a broken, rotting vehicle stuck in his driveway.

rdtsc 12y ago

It is interesting that it got to this and I wonder how many in chain from next down the chain of "hey let's give this to the school district" idea person, to "i am painting a mine-resistant tank in white, so we can use it in a San Diego school district" thought "surely this can't be right" but then did it anyway. In general, with all the militarization of police articles and news. Maybe the proper way is a militarized response to it. Crank it up a level and let it get even more ridiculous. Petty thieves and drug dealers should learn about how to build and detonate shaped charges to defeat these things. It shouldn't be too hard. A copper cone with some explosive behind it should do it. Then wait for the police to start flying drones with hellfire missiles through the inner cities and blasting away whole city blocks. Then use home made SAM missiles to defeat those and so on. Pretty sure with proper PR one can easily invoke the spirit of Founding Fathers and revolutionary and constitutionally sanctioned fight against oppression in response the corresponding rhetoric about Drug or Terror War.

moxie 12y ago

It was interesting to see that Uber is providing financial support for police militarization: https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/507978633894313985 https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/507978633894313985 Shane Bauer's full coverage of the "Urban Shield" police convention in Oakland was great: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/09/video-highlights-oaklands-urbanshield-conference http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/09/video-highlights-oak... https://storify.com/smbauer1/urban-shield-swat-convention-in-oakland-2014 https://storify.com/smbauer1/urban-shield-swat-convention-in...

iterationx 12y ago

These programs are a nice application of the "Stanford Prison Experiment". Dress a man like RoboCop and he starts acting like RoboCop.

kabouseng 12y ago
You know that experiment had some serious flaws making the results highly suspect?

moo 12y ago

A lot of downsides to this. High maintenance cost, conditioning children to live in a militarized environment, more bureaucratic overhead for management and administrative decisions (the administrative officials may see this as job security).

smutticus 12y ago

Proving once again that the purpose of war/fear is to transfer public wealth into private hands.

jlcx 12y ago
Of course, before it was taken by the government, that "public wealth" was private wealth, and the taking of that private wealth was also justified with fear.

moo 12y ago

I'm not going to vote for more school funding when money will be spent to maintain armored vehicles.

defen 12y ago

San Diego is coated in Navy bases...so the extent to which you could argue that there is a plausible scenario where this thing would be useful is completely obviated by the existing huge military presence. Furthermore, even if it were useful for civilians, why is it in the hands of a school district rather than the police? Who is going to pay for the maintenance? This is completely insane. People are putting their own desire for a "cool" piece of hardware ahead of any rational justification for it relative to its costs.

jmccree 12y ago
Like many school districts across the nation, the school district has it's own police force: "San Diego Unified School District Police Department". Of course many now want their own SWAT teams. For the children!
- defen 12y ago
  I must have completely missed that, thanks! Luckily my first point still stands.
- johan_larson 12y ago
  What kind of schools they're running if they need cops so often that they've formed their own force? I'm pretty sure none of my schools in Canada and Finland had even a security guard.
rogerhoward 12y ago
The San Diego Unified School District, like most large school districts, universities, even transit systems, in the US has its own police force - this is going to a police department... they have 54 officers, so its larger than many small town departments by a good stretch. Also, whether there's a military presence in the area or not is irrelevant to their needs - the military doesn't provide tactical support in law enforcement actions. I'm not taking the position that it's a sane use of resources or a necessity (I don't think it is)...
- 12y ago

spiritplumber 12y ago

Clearly, we must lobby San Diego School District to start a Sensha-Do program, since they've already got a tank... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_und_Panzer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_und_Panzer

_cudgel 12y ago

If the US Gov't wants to unload these things, how about donating them to the UN for their use, while giving the US Gov't a credit toward back dues?

noonespecial 12y ago

The waste is terrible but I'm thinking there's something worse going on here. Children are being desensitized to seeing the weapons of war being used in daily life by local authorities. This is a bad, bad thing.

electromagnetic 12y ago
Honestly this is more insidious than the brain washing that went on in the Hitler Youth. This has got to be what the Jews in the ghettos were seeing before everyone found out who they were to be used on.
- benologist 12y ago
  I don't really see how this is vastly different to the armored trucks used by banks and security services for decades?
  - noonespecial 12y ago
    Its a tank. At school. Where the children are suspended for nibbling a pop-tart into the shape of a pistol.
    - benologist 12y ago
      Tank: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Japanese_Type_90_Tank_-_2.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Japanese_... Armored truck: http://www.armoredcarssale.com/vehicledata/international/4700/f1011/used_armored_truck_1280x960-053208.jpg http://www.armoredcarssale.com/vehicledata/international/470... Their vehicle: http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/09/13/mrap-ambulance_wide-54bf7231fc1cc86cb1def00ac37882d44e3405f4-s40-c85.jpg http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/09/13/mrap-ambulance_wi...
      - LnxPrgr3 12y ago
        To be fair, an MRAP is quite a step above armored car—including being huge, heavy, fuel-hungry, and designed for use in war zones. And MRAP use was somewhat controversial even in Iraq, where they were designed to be used: https://web.archive.org/web/20070718130937/http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003798.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070718130937/http://www.defens... For a lighter look at what an MRAP really is, thanks to Top Gear (though this is a South African vehicle, not the ones we deployed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic They're not tanks, but I can see why people would call them that.

kristopolous 12y ago

even if you believed the entire narrative it still doesn't work. The efficacy of a criminal is due to the response time of the enforcement. It doesn't matter if 30 police show up in tanks if it takes them 45 minutes to do so, except for instance of you know, mass protest and civil unrest. It's like we're moving towards a day where the photograph of the tank man is no longer shocking

tedunangst 12y ago
? What narrative? What does efficacy of a criminal have to do with it?

dba7dba 12y ago

You can't even give these MRAPs away to our allies. S Korean govt was offered 2000 of these by Pentagon. SK Govt was basically getting them for free plus transportation cost. Guess what? After a few trials in their nations, they realized it wasn't suitable. Too big/heavy. Gas guzzler. Expensive to maintain. Invading Iraq was a mistake. Disbanding Iraqi army was a bigger mistake imo.

georgemcbay 12y ago

I live in San Diego and this has been big local news for about a week. Obviously this is insane, not only because the militarization of domestic police is a serious issue and their justification for getting one of these is obviously a completely impractical use, but mainly because the reason the military is dumping these things in the first place is because they cost too much for them to maintain TOO MUCH FOR THE MILITARY (budget: nearly 1 trillion) TO MAINTAIN! Also... what's next, police getting all the Abrams tanks that the Army no longer wants but which keep getting built due to pork-barreling Congresspeople? http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-end-of-the-tank-the-army-says-it-doesnt-need-it-but-industry-wants-to-keep-building-it/2014/01/31/c11e5ee0-60f0-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-end-of-th...

ufmace 12y ago

From what I've read about these things, the maintenance costs if they're used for anything but sitting in a parking lot are insane, especially in the civilian world. There's no established supply chain for special tools and spare parts like there are for normal, mass-market vehicles, so they have to pay through the nose and wait forever for them, or do without. Making this an especially strange purchase. Any cost saved on getting the vehicle will soon be eaten up by fuel and maintenance costs - I'm sure the gas mileage is terrible too.

cb18 12y ago

The most ridiculous thing about this, apart from it being ridiculous in every way, is that these are purpose built machines of war good for only one thing, being resistant to mines. They would have no advantage in use over nearly any other vehicle, police cruiser, ambulance, segway, bicycle, in the extreme situations cited as potential use cases. I don't know what the fuck the dipshits at OSU are thinking when they say they'll use it in conjunction with football games. Maybe somebody got drunk one night and a little too into an academic paper on college football as pseudo warring tribes or something. I guess these things are good for a couple other things besides being resistant to mines. Namely burning a fuckton of oil and accelerating the deterioration of roads. All the more reason to produce more machines of war to commandeer the resources of hostile foreign nations to have the raw materials to refine gasoline and produce asphalt. Well that's probably not good thing, after all.

lotsofcows 12y ago

Free? How much does that thing cost to insure? And fuel?